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Return of shamba system
November 12, 2007
EA STANDRAD
By Evelyn Ogutu and Munene Kamau
After more than a decade in which farmers were barred from
cultivating inside Kenya’s forests, the Government has lifted the
ban on the shamba system, setting it on a collision course with
environmentalists.
The move, announced two weeks ago by Environment Minister, Mr
David Mwiraria, has elicited angry reactions from conservationists
who accuse the Government of backing down on a promise to protect
forests.
And even before a legal framework has been put in place to allow
farmers and loggers to harvest trees, reports indicate that some
timber merchants have already been issued licences to cut trees in
parts of Mount Kenya Forest.
The Big Issue established that three individuals have been allowed
to harvest 66 hectares of eucalyptus trees at Kangaita section of
Mt Kenya forest within Kirinyaga district.
Under the new system, the minister is expected to issue fresh
guidelines, which will be gazetted and followed by the
beneficiaries of the system. However, this is yet to be done.
With Mwiraria’s statement, ironically made at the start of the
Eastern region’s tree planting season, all progress is now
threatened by the decision to allow farmers and loggers back into
forests.
This move is expected to be replicated in many other forests
across the country, which are already strained by several decades
of wanton and indiscriminate harvesting of trees.
Among those protesting at the decision is Nobel Laureate, Prof
Wangari Maathai, who says the gains made in the last decade are
about to come to nought.
Maathai says Mwiraria’s decision appears to be a desperate move to
woo voters to President Kibaki’s side in the ongoing campaigns
ahead of the General Election. She said such action would roll
back the gains made in environmental conservation and vowed to
resist it.
"Kenya’s forest cover is still below what is recommended
internationally, yet the minister has gone ahead and lifted the
ban on logging and the shamba system. I will fight this decision
and ask the President to revoke that order," said Maathai in an
exclusive interview with the Big Issue.
The term ‘shamba system’ is generally defined in Kenya as a form
of agro forestry by which farmers are encouraged to cultivate
crops on previously clear cut forest land on the condition that
they replant the trees.
After three years, the trees would have matured and the farmer
would then have to move out of the land to another plot that was
ready for clearing. In this way, the cultivated land would be
returned to the forest reserve.
But past surveys by the Kenya Forest Working Group, a lobby group,
and the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) showed that over 75 per cent
of clear-felled plantations had not been replanted with tree
seedlings.
Since it came to power in 2003, the Government had shown some
resolve to conserve forests by taking radical, albeit unpopular
moves that attempted to provide Kenya with an environmentally
acceptable forest cover.
These included the suspension of scores of forest officers found
to have been allowing loggers to harvest trees illegally, the
eviction of squatters who had settled on forestland and the launch
of an ambitious re-afforestation programme.
The re-introduction of the shamba system, it is feared, might lead
to increased illegal logging and deforestation. Campaigners have
already warned of a looming water crisis, adding that conflict
between humans and wildlife is in the offing.
In a bid to conserve the vanishing forests, the KWS in 2003
proposed a five-year plan that would banish squatters from the
vicinity of Mt Kenya. The Government accepted the plan, and
families that were practicing the shamba system were evicted from
the forest.
Before the surprise announcement by the minister,
environmentalists expected the Government to support ongoing
re-afforestation programmes, such as the one being run by the
Green Belt Movement.
The Sh150 million project is aimed at reversing the effects of
indiscriminate logging. It also hopes to reduce the amount of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by creating more forest cover.
According to the project’s co-ordinator, Mr. Fredrick Njau, the
pressure for firewood and charcoal had depleted the forest and
called for re-afforestation.
Njau said the glaciers on Mt. Kenya were shrinking fast,
threatening the water supply for millions of people. The movement
plans to launch the Biocarbon Fund, which will see one billion
trees planted in more than 4,000 hectares of the Aberdares and Mt.
Kenya forests.
However, the continual depletion of nutrients makes it more
difficult for forested land to re-establish when cultivated plots
are abandoned. Since independence, the Laikipia plateau has been
changing as regards ownership and settlement pattern. From the
early 1980’s the scheme was mismanaged and abused leading to the
reduction of forest cover.
Many problems like famine and human-wildlife conflict have emerged
as a result of the abuse of the once noble concept. Some of the
farmers used to rent out the forest plots to second parties to
ensure a continued presence on the land therefore trees were not
re-planted and the land did not return to the reserve.
According to statistics from the KWS, before the system was banned
about 19 per cent of shamba systems had encroached into natural
forest hence destroying the flora and fauna.
In late 1993, some plantations in Naro Moru, Sirimon and Saina in
Mt. Kenya region were opened up by presidential decree to
temporary farming activities. As a consequence, the shambas
extended to the Naro Moru Gate of Mt. Kenya National Park and the
remaining forest was subjected to extreme pressure from squatters
who felled more trees for timber and firewood.
Besides that, a section of the forest was cleared and turned into
large plantations of bhang (marijuana).
Clearly the future challenge for forest management is how to
balance the economic needs of the society while protecting the
forest’s microclimate, water catchment areas, bio-diversity and
soil stability.
Mt Kenya forest houses one of Kenya’s most important water
catchment areas and eco-systems. It has been declared a United
Nations World Heritage Site in recognition of its rich flora and
fauna.
With its reintroduction, the shamba system is expected to reduce
the already depleted forest cover. According to studies, Kenya’s
forests have shrunk by an estimated 75 percent in the past 150
years.
Besides the depletion of the forest, the snow-capped Mt. Kenya has
also lost 92 per cent of its largest mass of ice in the last 100
years. Researchers have predicted that unless the forest around
the mountain is conserved, the Lewis Glacier on top of the
mountain could disappear in a few years time.
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